Mobile backhaul equipment investments jumped a healthy 59% in 2008 to $3.7 billion worldwide and is predicted to grow another 60% jump in 2009 to $5.9 billion, according to Infonetics’ latest Mobile Backhaul Equipment and Services report, which also tracks mobile backhaul connections, installed cell sites, and service charges.
Infonetics expects more than 1.6 billion new mobile subscribers and about 700 thousand new mobile broadband subscribers between 2009 and 2013, which will require more base stations, more cell site connections, higher backhaul capacities, and equipment for each cell site connection. While Ericsson continues to lead the microwave mobile backhaul equipment market with about a quarter of worldwide revenue, there remains plenty of opportunity for smaller, more nimble players such as Harris-Stratex, Ceragon and DragonWave to drive innovation and eat into the market share of the larger players.
“We see no letup in the mobile backhaul equipment market, as service providers around the world continue to upgrade their networks to handle the rapidly growing number of mobile broadband subscribers and their bandwidth-heavy habits. More than 100 operators are now deploying HSPA, with a coming wave of HSPA+ upgrades, WiMAX, and LTE, all to handle the skyrocketing mobile data traffic. And the most cost-effective way to do that is to transition from TDM to packet IP/Ethernet, which is driving the mobile backhaul equipment market,” explains Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research.
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